Bridge -- A Grand Slam Hope For Game's Revival

September 2, 1986|By James Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate

SCRABBLE, VA. — The newspapers and wire services have been having an intoxicating time lately with the chess championship matches between Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. Every day we are treated to accounts of ''furious play'' that ''shocks'' the spectators. In one match the embattled contestants ''slugged it out.'' It's red-blooded reading. And I'm downright envious.

How come the ancient and honorable game of bridge doesn't get the same blow-by-blow coverage? A recent survey by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) found an estimated 10 million to 12 million bridge players in the United States. Most of them play only social bridge, as distinguished from duplicate or tournament bridge, but that's quite an army. Yet the wire services rarely move more than a few paragraphs on bridge battles that are every bit as gripping as ''Rxf4; 24. Nexgfich, hxg6,'' whatever all that means.

The lamentable truth is that bridge, which once was the nation's most popular indoor game, has been in a long decline. More than 50 years have passed since Ely and Josephine Culbertson took on Sidney Lenz and Oswald Jacoby in what was called the Bridge Battle of the Century.

Culbertson was a great showman, a linguist, a gambler, a skilled promoter. He picked up where millionaire Harold S. Vanderbilt left off, and throughout the 1930s and into the postwar years the ''Culbertson System'' gained internationa fame. In those days bridge was the rage at most colleges and universities. Some games would start after classes on a Friday afternoon and go on groggily until early Monday morning. But when Culbertson lost interest and no equally colorful champions appeared, young people turned to other diversions. I don't know what games the college students play today, but they're missing some joys of intellectual combat when they pass up bridge for tossing Frisbees.

The ACBL is out to change all that. The league is test-marketing a program of bridge instruction in Omaha, Phoenix and Albany this fall. A vigorous campaign of public relations will seek to attract high school and college students to the game. The average bridge player, according to the ACBL's survey, is 52 years old. Only 17 percent of the frequent players are younger than 34. As a breed, bridge enthusiasts are getting a little long in the tooth.

This is a pity. I don't mean to take anything away from chess. There must be real excitement when Kasparov ''punches back with 22 . . . Qh5, forcing Karpov into a sacrificial mode.'' For chess players, ''fireworks begin'' with a variation on the Gruenfeld Indian Defense. Chess players seem to be forever attacking, threatening, forcing and slaughtering. After a bruising exchange, ''smoke clears.''

All this is true of bridge. The subtleties of bidding and play offer all kinds of opportunities for attacking, defending and hornswoggling. The verbs are as vigorous as the verbs of chess: A declarer squeezes his opponents, pulls a coup, forces a discard, throws West into a suicidal lead. The game is enlivened by false cards and deceptive overcalls. In social bridge the element of chance plays a big role, but in duplicate play, when all the tables sequentially play the same hands, it becomes a battle of pure skill.

Unfortunately, bridge suffers from too many players who take the game too damned seriously. When one thinks of the temper tantrums of top chess players, maybe the condition exists in the world of chess as well. In any event, the pleasure of a duplicate tournament often is diminished by the rudeness of semiprofessionals who are out for blood.

None of this should detract from an evening of parlor bridge. Unlike gin rummy or poker, it's not necessary to play bridge for money, though a modest stake tends to sober the most impulsive bidders. For the last 20 years of her life, my sainted mother played for a 50th of a cent a point. Sometimes she won or lost 30 cents in a big evening. This is little old lady bridge and is not to be disdained.

As an avid but awful player, I have an evangelical feeling about the game. Share the fun! With some lively promotion, maybe we can get the wire services to cover the North American championships in Atlanta with at least as much verve as they give to ''16. Ne7ch, Kh8.'' Kazaam!